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This stylized, free-standing, wood sculpture shows a seated man with horns, creating a column-like shape. The statue is carved from polished, reddish-brown wood. The column is divided into three sections for the head, torso, and legs. In this photograph, the man faces us. He has gold-colored eyes under arched brows, a wide nose, thin lips, and a square jaw. The horns rise from over his temples. In the middle section, he holds his hands in front of his chest, nearly touching as if in prayer. The bottom section shows his shins, knees together. His feet, which are roughly carved, turn outward. The base along the bottom is carved with words painted in gold, reading, “PERE PAILLARO.”

Paul Gauguin

Père Paillard, 1902

Not on View

Medium

painted miro wood

Dimensions

overall: 67.9 x 18 x 20.7 cm (26 3/4 x 7 1/16 x 8 1/8 in.)

Credit Line

Chester Dale Collection

Accession Number

1963.10.238

Artists / Makers

Paul Gauguin (artist) French, 1848 - 1903

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Overview

Gauguin purposefully displayed his Père Paillard and its female companion piece, Thérèse, in front of his Polynesian home (which he named the House of Pleasure), so that islanders passing by could appreciate the two carved works. Their meaning was evident to everyone. From Père Paillard (Father Lechery or Debauchery) inscribed on its base, they recognized the local Catholic bishop, Monseigneur Martin, who entreated Gauguin to stop his liaisons with local women, while pursuing them himself (with Thérèse and others) despite his vows of celibacy.

Gauguin shows the bishop for what he considered him to be: a nude, horned devil. Though outwardly pious, Père Paillard's solemn expression and praying hands fail to mask his inner desires. Two nude women, carved in shallow relief near the base of the sculpture, may allude to his private predilection. Its specific context notwithstanding, the sculpture also forcefully embodies the artist's primitive aesthetic and anti-Western values.

Gauguin retained the cylindrical form of the miro wood log (native to the Marquesas Islands where he moved in his final years) in the finished figure, a reflection of his concept of beauty as a harmony between subject and material. For the most part, the sculpture's golden brown surface retains the primitive, rhythmic patterns of the artist's chisels and gouges; only the figure's cheeks, forehead, and jutting chin are filed smooth. Gold paint, used to accent the bishop's eyes, the women, and the inscription, has largely disappeared over time.

More information on this object can be found in the Gallery publication European Sculpture of the Nineteenth Century, which is available as a free PDF https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/european-sculpture-19th-century.pdf

Inscription

carved in relief along central front of self-base: PERE PAiLLARO[sic]; incised on left of self-base: PGO.

Provenance

Collection of the artist until his death, 1903; (his estate sale, Tahiti, 2 September 1903, possibly among nos. 60-62); sold to Emile Lévy [1858-1932], Papeete; sold c. 1905 to (Galerie Druet, Paris).[1] Possibly (Ambroise Vollard [1867-1939] Paris);[2] (Etienne Bignou, Paris and New York), by 1928;[3] gift June 1930 to Chester Dale [1883-1962], New York;[4] bequest 1963 to NGA.

[1] The standard provenance that identifies Piétri of Papeete as the buyer from the 1903 death sale is based on Jean Loize, Les Amitiés du peintre Georges-Daniel de Monfreid et ses reliques de Gauguin, Paris, 1951, 133: "Au dos [of Georges-Daniel Monfreid's notes about Gauguin's death], liste d'oeuvres de Gauguin achetées avant ou après sa mort...Les bois...'Thérèse et l'Evêque' aux mains de M. Piétri, Juge à Tahiti probablement...." This is Monfreid's purely speculative statement, based on information that Loize believes comes from Victor Segalen. The judge is a documented buyer of an inexpensive "tiki" (no. 64 at six francs; in Georges Wildenstein, ed., "Vente des oeuvres d'art, livres et objets ayant appartenu à Gauguin. 2 septembre 1903", Gazette des Beaux Arts, 6th per., 47, January-April 1956; published January 1958, 207). However various other references suggest that the pendants went to Lévy, who bought three "tikis" from the sale (nos. 60-62 at 16, 15, and 20 francs (Wildenstein 1956, 207). Segalen himself (Lettres de Paul Gauguin à Georges-Daniel de Monfreid, précédées d'un hommage par Victor Segalen, Paris and Zurich, 1918, 67-68) identified the pendants' buyer at the sale as a merchant (Lévy was a pearl merchant) and Henri Jacquier ("Histoire locale: Le dossier de la succession Paul Gauguin," Bulletin de la Société des Etudes Océaniennes, 120 [September 1957], 677) states that Lévy sold the pendants two years later to Edouard Druet. Victor Merlhès (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, correspondence with Anne Halpern dated 14 December 1999, in NGA curatorial files) suggested this alternative provenance and the texts that support it. The Druet ownership is also based on a fragment of a paper label on the underside of the figure, on which is written, in ink, in block letters: [GALER] IE [D]RUET; in lower case: St-Honoré Par[is]/[Gaugui]n/[Paill]ard; and a printed number: 9 6 [996?]. The number could possibly be an inventory number.

[2] The provenance that places the work in the collections of Emile Schuffenecker and Ambroise Vollard is found in Christopher Gray, Sculpture and Ceramics of Paul Gauguin , Baltimore, 1963: 288. A photograph in the Eitenne Bignou albums at the documentation center of the Musée d'Orsay is annotated with Vollard and Schuffenecker as former owners (copy NGA curatorial files). The Chester Dale papers (in NGA curatorial files) document only Vollard's ownership, and the provenance is recorded twice: "Mr. Bignou got it from Am. Vollard, who had it from Gauguin;" and "Former collection Ambrose[sic] Vollard, Paris, who bought it from Gauguin." Merlhès (as above, note 1) discounted their plausibility altogether.

[3] Cited as the lender to the 1928 exhibition at the Musée du Luxembourg.

[4] The date of Bignou's gift of Père Paillard to Chester Dale is recorded in the Dale papers in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Bignou, Etienne
Dale, Chester
Galerie Druet
Gauguin, Paul
Lévy, Emile
Vollard, Ambroise

Exhibition History

1910: Exposition de sculptures et poteries de Gauguin, Galerie Eugène Blot, Paris, 1910, possibly as Idole maorie.

1917: Exposition Paul Gauguin, Nunès et Fiquet, Paris, 1917, no. 23, as Père Paillard sous les traits de l'Evêque de Papeete (Taït).

1923: Exposition Rétrospective de P. Gauguin, Galerie L. Dru, Paris, 1923, no. 59.

1928: Gauguin, Sculpteur et Graveur, Musée du Luxembourg, Paris, 1928, no. 22.

1956: Loan Exhibition. Gauguin. For the benefit of the Citizens' Committee for Children of New York City, Inc., Wildenstein and Company, New York, 1956, no. 102.

1956: Paul Gauguin 1848-1903, The Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, Florida, 1956, no. 28, repro.

1959: Gauguin: Paintings, Drawings, Prints, Sculpture, The Art Institute of Chicago; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1959, no. 124, repro., as Father Lechery (Pere Paillard).

1960: Paul Gauguin, Haus der Kunst, Munich, 1960, no. 158, repro.

1965: The Chester Dale Bequest, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1965, unnumbered checklist.

1981: Gauguin to Moore: Primitivism in Modern Sculpture, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada, 1981-1982, no. 17.

1987: Exotic Worlds: European Phantasies, Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, Federal Republic of Germany, 1987, no. 43.

1988: The Art of Paul Gauguin, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Art Institute of Chicago; Grand Palais, Paris, 1988-1989, no. 259, color repro., as Father Lechery.

1989: Gogen: Vzgliad iz Rossii [Gauguin], The State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow; The State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad, 1989, no. 64, color repro.

2010: Gauguin: Maker of Myth, Tate, London; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2010-2011, not in catalogue (shown only in Washington).

2011: Gauguin / Polynesia, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen; Seattle Art Museum, 2011-2012, no. 334, repro.

2017: Gauguin: Artist as Alchemist, The Art Institute of Chicago; Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 2017-2018, no. 265, repro.

2019: Gauguin Portraits, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; The National Gallery, London, 2019-2020, no. 93, repro.

Bibliography

1903: Gauguin, Paul. Avant et après. 1903: 46. Facs. ed. Leipzig, 1913; reprinted Copenhagen, 1951.

1919: Morice, Charles. Paul Gauguin. Paris, 1919: 224.

1937: Gauguin, Pola. My Father, Paul Gauguin. Translated by Arthur G. Chater. New York, 1937: 262, 266 (new edition, 1988). Originally Paul Gauguin, Mon Père. Translated by Georges Sautreau. Paris, 1938.

1951: Loize, Jean. Les Amitiès du peintre Georges-Daniel de Monfreid et ses réliques de Gauguin. Paris, 1951: 133, 175.

1955: Chassé, Charles. Gauguin et son temps. Paris, 1955: 100, 109, 115, repro.

1956: Le Bronnec, Guillaume. "Les Dernières Années." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 6th per., 47 (January-April 1956; published 1958): 196, 199.

1963: Gray, Christopher. Sculpture and Ceramics of Paul Gauguin. Baltimore, 1963: 288, no. 136, repro.

1965: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Paintings & Sculpture of the French School in the Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 145, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 157, as Père Paillard (Father Lechery).

1966: Danielsson, Bengt. Gauguin in the South Seas. Garden City, New Jersey, 1966: 272.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 139, repro., as Père Paillard (Father Lechery).

1971: Andersen, Wayne, assisted by Barbara Klein. Gauguin's Paradise Lost. New York, 1971: 259.

1983: Teilhet-Fiske, Jehanne. Paradise Reviewed. An Interpretation of Gauguin's Polynesian Symbolism. Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1983: 158.

1988: Brettel. "The Fine Years: Tahiti and Hivaoa." In The Art of Paul Gauguin. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Art Institute of Chicago; Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris. Washington, D.C., 1988: 464-465, no. 259, color repro.

1994: Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1994: 96, repro.

2000: Butler, Ruth, and Suzanne Glover Lindsay, with Alison Luchs, Douglas Lewis, Cynthia J. Mills, and Jeffrey Weidman. European Sculpture of the Nineteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2000: 245-251, color repro.

2015: Bailey, Martin. "Gauguin's 'will and testament'." The Art Newspaper (1 February 2015): 32.